


No One Who Loves is Invincible

by ussmckirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ussmckirk/pseuds/ussmckirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sometimes Jim hates Leonard McCoy for making him fall in love with him, because Jim used to be invincible. He used to not need anybody or anything.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And now? Now Jim is assailable. He is powerless. He is capable of being broken. He is capable of being destroyed.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Who Loves is Invincible

Sometimes Jim hates Leonard McCoy for making him fall in love with him.

Jim Kirk used to be invincible.

When he was little, his mother was off planet more than she was on. And on the occasions when Winona Kirk was in the vicinity of her sons, she had a talent for failing to notice the bruises Jim's stepfather had left on him and his older brother, Sam.

Sometimes when Frank was drunk and Sam would lock the two of them in the small bathroom by their bedroom, Jim would ask why their mother wasn't home more. Sam usually just told Jim to be quiet, but one time he'd turned to the younger boy and snapped, "Fuck her, Jimmy. We don't need her, okay?" Pulling Jim closer, he held him so fiercely, his fingers dug painfully into Jim's arms. "It's just you and me. You and me against the world."

Prior to that, Jim had believed that his mother really was oblivious to what went on when she wasn't around. He had told himself, tried to convince himself, that his mother didn't see the signs that her children were being used as convenient targets of her husband's explosive temper. After that night, after seeing the truth glinting off the hardness in Sam's eyes, he realized that Winona hadn't seen the signs because she hadn't wanted to see them. Because seeing them meant she would have had to stay.

Jim could have broken when he realized that his mother viewed him as something holding her back rather than something to hold on to, but he clung to Sam's mantra, wearing his indifference like an armor.

When Sam ran away, and left Jim alone with their stepfather, Jim had nobody. Nobody who loved him. Nobody who viewed him as anything more than a burden or an annoyance. And Jim could have let that second abandonment break him. But he didn't. He didn't. Instead it made him stronger. Harder. He wore his apathy and his scorn in his shit-eating grin and cocky smirk, his every move silently broadcasting, 'You think I'm a nothing? Well, fuck you, anyway. I'm fine on my own. I don't need you'. 

Jim Kirk used to be invincible because he didn't need anybody or anything. 

Jim only had himself to rely on or answer to and he'd liked it that way. Sure, nobody gave a fuck about him, but he didn't give a fuck about anyone either, and as long as he didn't care about anybody or anything, nothing could hurt him. Nothing could even touch him. 

Jim had spent years getting into bar fights and regularly getting his head bashed in. He'd fucked people who didn't give a shit if they were hurting him, people who told him that he really was as big of a whore as people said he was once they'd gotten what they wanted. Sometimes he'd even let those people fuck him again. Jim had never had a death wish, but he hadn't been scared of dying either. If it happened, it happened. It's not like he had anyone to stay alive for.

Then, one day, Jim met Bones and everything changed.

Suddenly, there was somebody who had the power to hurt him. Somebody he felt terrified of disappointing or losing. Suddenly, there was somebody who made him want. Somebody who he needed.

Jim fell in love with Leonard McCoy, even though he tried desperately not to.

Now, every day, Jim wonders if today is the day when Bones wakes up and sees what everyone else has always known: that Jim Kirk isn't someone worth sticking around for, that he isn't someone worth loving.

Some nights, Jim stays up and worries over every thing he's said, every action he that he's taken. Because eventually he's going to fuck up and Bones is going to realize that he can do so much better.

Sometimes Jim hates Leonard McCoy for making him fall in love with him, because Jim used to be invincible. He used to not need anybody or anything.

And now? Now Jim is assailable. He is powerless. He is capable of being broken. He is capable of being destroyed.

Jim Kirk used to not need anybody or anything. But now there is somebody that Jim needs. Somebody who is everything.


End file.
